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Friday Full-Length: Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats, Blood Lust

Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats, Blood Lust (2011)

Starting later this year, you’re going to start to see a bunch of best-albums-of-the-decade lists. Any such list of heavy records that doesn’t include Uncle Acid and the DeadbeatsBlood Lust is doing it wrong. Released in 2011 through Killer Candy Records as the UK band’s second full-length (also discussed here), it was soon picked up by Rise Above Records for a wider vinyl and CD pressing, and garage doom was born. I’m not sure another single album has come out between 2010 and 2019 that has had as much of an influence on underground heavy rock — maybe Graveyard‘s Hisingen Blues in 2011, but even that’s debatable. In its raw guitar fuzz, eerie melodies, early mystique and outright perfect presentation, Blood Lust was every bit the proverbial right album at the right time. Any given week, it’s a safe bet that even going on eight years later, I’m going to hear some band come along who’ve copped the riff to “I’ll Cut You Down.”

And reasonably so. With the formative Vol. 1 (reissue review here) behind them in 2010, Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats unleashed a collection of tracks on Blood Lust that were not only aesthetically innovative, but impeccable in their construction. Even as they conveyed a sense of horror and VHS-style tonal grit, they did so over a classic heavy rock strut and swing on cuts like the aforementioned opener as well as “Death’s Door,” the shuffling side B opener “I’m Here to Kill You” and “13 Candles” that seemed to tempt you to snap along. With the short, quiet introduction of droning noise and a channel-flipping television — note the analog static scratch between channels; clearly it’s an old television — Blood Lust set its malevolent atmosphere early and only grew more evil in its purposes, lyrics shifting from stalking and murder to witches, cult ritualism and Satanic fervor. It was a record that most people would find angry, upsetting, and unpalatable, and that’s exactly what it was intended to be. A dogwhistle to an audience who didn’t know it was waiting for it, dressed in purple as an amalgam of style and substance up to that point that was largely unheard.

Looking back, there are moments throughout that run into the politically problematic. “I’ll Cut You Down” is direct in its glorification of violence against women, and in that context, “Death’s Door” and “Ritual Knife” seem to followuncle acid and the deadbeats blood lust suit. Uncle Acid have gotten a pass from a lot of accusations of misogyny because so much of what they do is storytelling and style-based, pulling from the influence of cult horror cinema and all that, but do I really need to say even pretending to kill ladies isn’t really cool? That’s something that their more recent work on last year’s Wasteland (review here) seemed to subtly pull away from, and fair enough for the change of political moment between 2011 and 2018 as issues of discrimination, violence against women and sexual violence became more a part of the international cultural conversation than they were when Blood Lust came out. Their third album, 2013’s Mind Control (review here), was more themed around cults and the inherent violence of thought as well as deed, but even 2015’s The Night Creeper (review here) seemed to return to its knife-wielding foundation even as it stripped away the grandiose production of its predecessor in favor of a rawer, nastier sound.

The overarching quality of Blood Lust, though, remains largely undeniable, and so does its impact. “I’ll Cut You Down,” “Death’s Door,” “13 Candles,” and closer “Withered Hand of Evil” are nothing short of landmarks, and even in “Curse in the Trees,” on which frontman and band mastermind Kevin R. Starrs donned the point of view of a witch being persecuted and burned alive, there was a nuance of their approach that begged the listener’s attention. At the time, roughly nothing was known about the band. There was no fanfare to the release of Blood Lust. It was simply out there one day — not that I’m any arbiter of what’s hip or anything, but for what it’s worth, I totally missed it — and its impact moved fast. It wasn’t really until Rise Above had it out on CD in 2012 as part of its then-allegiance with Metal Blade Records that the groundswell took hold, but even before that, there was significant word-of-mouth momentum behind it. And at that point, Uncle Acid hadn’t even played a show. They’ve hardly looked back since, but they didn’t start playing live until 2013.

Part of that, of course, was maintaining the mystery around the band. As mobile-based social media was allowing fans unfettered and direct access to artists — something taken for granted less than a decade later — Uncle Acid were minimal participants at best. They had a website that was a single page, then they had some shirts on it. They had a Facebook page with roughly no info. Their names weren’t known. Where they were from wasn’t really known, and most importantly, it wasn’t really known how they got that sound. The creepy, eerie vocals on “Withered Hand of Evil” or “I’m Here to Kill You” or the acoustic bonus track “Down to the Fire.” That wavering melodic sensibility on “I’ll Cut You Down.” It was all so new at the time, and Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats had managed to pull off manifesting this previously untapped niche while basically letting no one know who they were or what they were doing. Listeners didn’t even know how many people were singing on any given track, and because the sound was so fresh and so interesting, the demand for it became a whirlwind.

I don’t know if I’ll do a list of the decade’s best albums. I might put up a poll. But there’s no question that Blood Lust, even with its high body count, is destined for consideration as a classic heavy rock album, and of course Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats have gone on to become one of their generation’s most pivotal acts, crossing over to a wider appeal in audience while maintaining the identity of sound that even going back to Vol. 1 was theirs and theirs alone, and which Blood Lust saw them perfect. They’re on tour in North America this March with Graveyard, as it happens. We should probably all go. I’ll drive.

As always, I hope you enjoy.

It’s Friday, right? Made it? That’s good.

Okay.

Tomorrow night I’m going to go see C.O.C., Crowbar, The Obsessed and Mothership in Boston. I’m doing that. It’s happening. Monday I’ll have the review up. It’ll be good. I’m going alone because no friends but still, it’ll be good.

I’ve also got a butt-ton of writing to do this weekend, including two bios, stuff for the Roadburn ‘zine and posts for next week to get ready, so I expect to be completely out of my mind for the next two days more than usual. I started feeling overwhelmed on Wednesday for this coming weekend. Something about that just kind of feels like I’m living wrong. Whatever.

The notes are packed, so here’s what I’ve got so far:

MON 02/18 COC LIVE REVIEW; GIMME RADIO WRAP
TUE 02/19 THE MUNSENS REVIEW/SAVER PREMIERE/REVIEW
WED 02/20 BEES MADE HONEY IN THE VEIN TREE PREMIERE/REVIEW
THU 02/21 THE RIVEN VIDEO PREMIERE
FRI 02/22 CANDLEMASS REVIEW; CURSED TONGUE SIGNING ANNOUNCE

It’s almost 6:30 — I slept until 5AM, miracle of miracles — and the baby is just starting to stir, so I better go grab him out of his hexagonal not-crib and start the day proper. Before I go:

This weekend is a new episode of ‘The Obelisk Show’ on Gimme Radio. I still need to cut the voice breaks for it. I’ll try my best to make them not suck. It airs Sunday at 7PM Eastern at http://gimmeradio.com.

Also, please buy shirts: http://dropoutmerch.com/the-obelisk.

Your support is appreciated.

Please have a great and safe weekend, and while I’m making demands on your time, please check out the forum and radio stream.

The Obelisk Forum

The Obelisk Radio

The Obelisk shirts & hoodies

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3 Responses to “Friday Full-Length: Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats, Blood Lust

  1. Mark says:

    Saw Uncle Acid for the first time last month in London. Blew me away how great a live band they are. Love Graveyard too so awesome double-bill for you stateside. Cheers

  2. JohnArz says:

    I’d go to COC with you but I slept on tickets and we’re flying out to CA the next morning. Plus, being social and having fun is icky.

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